Welcome to our New Boat

The Chair Patricia Rigg of this group (who has had breast cancer twice) which has now been running for five years, said: “We started with a second-hand boat which was deteriorating and there’s only so much patching up you can do. Then we were lucky in getting a grant from the Big Lottery Fund which enabled us this year to buy a brand new boat complete with a dragon’s head and tail. The new boat is a lot easier to handle, it is much lighter and we now have a new trailer being built to help us launch the boat and retrieve it from the water at the end of the session. This will be a great help as quite a few of our ladies have trouble lifting! The other new acquisition for our boat is a new cover, this is brilliant, it has attached bungee ties, and it is tailored to fit the boat top this stops the rain getting in, our old cover let water in and we had to bail the water out of the boat out regularly”.

The new boat will seat 20 people and we have a steady set of regular members who come along for a paddle on our regular Tuesday nights. We’ve had ladies come along who are 30 up to the age of 75, so there’s a broad age range of women. We have people who have just been diagnosed, as well as those who have overcome their cancer and can provide advice and support to others. One woman first came to us in tears – she was in such despair after having been diagnosed thinking she didn’t have a future. Being part of a supportive, relaxed friendly group really helped her, and the team exercise is great for you physically and mentally.

“We have a lot of fun and the ladies can bring along a family member or supporter. Some husbands and partners receive and offer support to each other and get the chance to chat to other people, while they have a cup of tea and a biscuit after paddling, where they can gather information and advice so they can support their partners.”

So if you would like to come down and join us, or come to see what we do, you would be made most welcome.

Welcome to Wigan Water Dragons

Wigan Water Dragons are a group of Breast Cancer Survivors who meet weekly to enjoy the exercise of paddling the dragon boat.
The exercise programme has been set up after research into the benefits of paddling to help reduce the effects of Lymphedema and it also gives an improvement in general physical and mental health.
The group is affiliated to Paddlers for Life UK, a UK charity based at Windermere, which now has groups as far apart as Edinburgh in the north and Bournemouth in the south, along with Dumfries and Galloway in the west, with new groups being set up all over the UK.